By Christopher Lidom
KUCHING, Oct 3: Sarawak Sports Council (SSC) is willing to extend assistance to Jonathan Nyepa if the national sprinter has truly been left without a coach since July.
Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development Minister Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah who was initially unaware of Jonathan’s alleged dilemma, stressed that SSC will look into the matter to determine if it is true that Johnathan is coachless.
“I think that he still has many more years of running potential and for him to be able to win an international event like that shows that he is very good.
“We are willing to help,” he told a press conference after chairing the Miss Tourism International World Final conference held at a hotel, here today.
Jonathan came in first in the 100m sprint event at the Central Asian Athletics Championships in Samarkand City, Uzbekistan, last week.
He clocked 10.55 seconds, ahead of his national teammate Khairul Hafiz Jantan, the gold medalist in the 2017 KL Sea Games 100m event, who clocked 10.74 seconds.
Meanwhile, Abdul Karim pointed out that Jonathan is a national athlete and that would place him under the management of the National Sports Council at Bukit Jalil.
According to Abdul Karim, he was not really aware of what has been going on as Jonathan did not update SSC as to whether he has been dropped.
“The fact that he does not have a coach means probably he might not be in Bukit Jalil anymore.
“That part I am still not too sure about. But then, for him to be representing Malaysia in an international event, there must be somebody sponsoring him. I need to get to the root of this matter,” he added.
Jonathan, 26, is ranked among Malaysia’s top five sprinters. He has been trained under M. Balamurugan since 2015, but as Balamurugan’s contract was not extended by National Sports Council, Jonathan has been allegedly left without a coach.
Since July, Jonathan has allegedly been training on his own following a programme designed by Balamurugan. — DayakDaily
